[Gc-linux-devel] Status

Hi!
I'm very busy with other stuff at the moment, but I could have a look
at GC Linux again today. The network driver seems to be perfect now
(thanks hampti!), we can mount root from NFS - so I could boot a full
Mandrake 9.1 and run some full-blown glibc apps like mpg123 and
mplayer.
*** Audio driver ***
Both apps had the same problem with kirin's audio driver: Every chunk
of PCM data seems to be repeated about 3 times, i.e. the speed is too
slow, but the pitch is correct. Can anyone else contribute their
experiences?
Looks somehow as if the interrupt handler is too slow and the audio
unit just keeps repeating, until the new data is ready. Just a guess.
Any idea?
*** MPlayer ***
MPlayer works quite nicely (640x384 DivX at 100% speed with (buggy)
sound disabled; sound enabled would slow everything down, because video
would sync to too-slow sound), but the colours are off. MPlayer seems
to try to encode the pixels itself and doesn't really use the
framebuffer driver. Workarounds?
*** X Window ***
X Window also works quite nicely. I have nothing to move the mouse
pointer with, and the colours are wrong as well, but a remote Gnome
session worked very well. See new screenshot on website (about to be
uploaded).
*** Keyboard driver ***
I have both the Tototek and the Datel keyboard adapter now, and I
experienced that it could even get worse. The Tototek adapter has some
very weird mappings, and quite some bad bugs - the Datel adapter
doesn't seem to have any bugs, but quite some dead keys, and very very
strange and Tototek-incompatible mappings. I'll investigate this
further. We might need a kernel command line to specify what adapter
the driver is supposed to support - fixing it with keyboard layouts
afterwards is probably no good idea, because we would need two versions
of every local layout then, for Tototek and Datel.
*** Other apps ***
I tried running VICE (C64 Emulator) on the GameCube's X Window session,
but it froze the machine. I also tried to compile MPlayer directly on
the GC, and GCC aborted. Most probably this is all due to out of memory
problems. I had no swap. I find it really interesting that DivX/MPEG4
works so well with only 24 MB, because I remember DivX 4 always said it
needed at least a 64 MB machine to play movies...
By the way, Steve_- is working on a small Debian-based NFS base system
that will be available for everyone.
Michael

Thread view

Hi!
I'm very busy with other stuff at the moment, but I could have a look
at GC Linux again today. The network driver seems to be perfect now
(thanks hampti!), we can mount root from NFS - so I could boot a full
Mandrake 9.1 and run some full-blown glibc apps like mpg123 and
mplayer.
*** Audio driver ***
Both apps had the same problem with kirin's audio driver: Every chunk
of PCM data seems to be repeated about 3 times, i.e. the speed is too
slow, but the pitch is correct. Can anyone else contribute their
experiences?
Looks somehow as if the interrupt handler is too slow and the audio
unit just keeps repeating, until the new data is ready. Just a guess.
Any idea?
*** MPlayer ***
MPlayer works quite nicely (640x384 DivX at 100% speed with (buggy)
sound disabled; sound enabled would slow everything down, because video
would sync to too-slow sound), but the colours are off. MPlayer seems
to try to encode the pixels itself and doesn't really use the
framebuffer driver. Workarounds?
*** X Window ***
X Window also works quite nicely. I have nothing to move the mouse
pointer with, and the colours are wrong as well, but a remote Gnome
session worked very well. See new screenshot on website (about to be
uploaded).
*** Keyboard driver ***
I have both the Tototek and the Datel keyboard adapter now, and I
experienced that it could even get worse. The Tototek adapter has some
very weird mappings, and quite some bad bugs - the Datel adapter
doesn't seem to have any bugs, but quite some dead keys, and very very
strange and Tototek-incompatible mappings. I'll investigate this
further. We might need a kernel command line to specify what adapter
the driver is supposed to support - fixing it with keyboard layouts
afterwards is probably no good idea, because we would need two versions
of every local layout then, for Tototek and Datel.
*** Other apps ***
I tried running VICE (C64 Emulator) on the GameCube's X Window session,
but it froze the machine. I also tried to compile MPlayer directly on
the GC, and GCC aborted. Most probably this is all due to out of memory
problems. I had no swap. I find it really interesting that DivX/MPEG4
works so well with only 24 MB, because I remember DivX 4 always said it
needed at least a 64 MB machine to play movies...
By the way, Steve_- is working on a small Debian-based NFS base system
that will be available for everyone.
Michael

Michael Steil wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I'm very busy with other stuff at the moment, but I could have a look at
> GC Linux again today. The network driver seems to be perfect now (thanks
> hampti!), we can mount root from NFS - so I could boot a full Mandrake
> 9.1 and run some full-blown glibc apps like mpg123 and mplayer.
>
[Yet another silly question]
I went on the website, download zImage.dol, but then what should I do, I
cannot ssh or telnet my GC (the boot is ok).
Could someone kind point me in the right direction
Thanks,
Mathieu

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Hi there,
**** Hard disk ****
Does anyone know what the interface is for the drive in the GC? I know
they use a custom drive firmware but that is NOT my question :-).
As I do not yet all of the bits I cannot test a theory that it is some
modified IDE botch which could have a 2.5" drive added to it.
Please can someone confirm.
Jon.
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http://www.gc-linux.org/docs/yagcd/chap2.html#sec2.4.1http://www.gc-linux.org/docs/yagcd/chap5.html#sec5.7
Not an IDE drive, but an 8 bit wide custom bus. Don't doubt though, that
with a CPLD and a kernel driver a harddisk can be attached, at least in
PIO mode. I think in the External interfaces patent I read it also does
DMA. It can be used IRQ driven for sure, at least there is the DVD Cover
interrupt which you could use, but i think there is an interrupt source
for the DVD data transport as well.
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: gc-linux-devel-admin@...
[mailto:gc-linux-devel-admin@...] On Behalf Of Jon
Masters
Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 2:26 AM
To: gc-linux-devel@...
Subject: Re: [Gc-linux-devel] Status
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Hi there,
**** Hard disk ****
Does anyone know what the interface is for the drive in the GC? I know
they use a custom drive firmware but that is NOT my question :-).
As I do not yet all of the bits I cannot test a theory that it is some
modified IDE botch which could have a 2.5" drive added to it.
Please can someone confirm.
Jon.

Rob Reilink wrote:
> http://www.gc-linux.org/docs/yagcd/chap2.html#sec2.4.1
> http://www.gc-linux.org/docs/yagcd/chap5.html#sec5.7
>
> Not an IDE drive, but an 8 bit wide custom bus. Don't doubt though, that
> with a CPLD and a kernel driver a harddisk can be attached
Exactly what I was planning since I recently bought a Coolrunner devkit
to do this stuff. So I will get my unit up and running and then see if I
can get a disk installed but of course first need to get it wokring and
verify that the Gamecube will be happy to still boot.
Probably need to implement a state machine which is transparent to the
native Gamecube logic so as to continue to allow it to boot.
Please contact me offlist if you are able to help.
Jon.